2017 OMLA Presentation

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The Addicting Phone Call

The power of the positive phone call is well documented. I've read the stories and the blog posts. But for some reason, I get busy, I forget or I just don't make it a priority. I admit, I haven't made very many positive phone calls home lately.

Recently we were challenged to make at least 2 positive phone calls home during Parent/Teacher Conferences. So I sat down before most of my conferences started to make a few calls.

I made the first call and left a message. 1 down 1 to go.

When I made the next call and the mother answered. I told her that we were challenged to some positive phone calls and I told her that I enjoyed having her daughter in class and to tell her to keep up the good work.

Mom paused and said thank you. She was obviously surprised and happy at the same time. The conversation continued for about two minutes.

There, I made my two calls so I was done right?

Nope.

It felt really good.

So I made another one.

It felt really good.

So I made another one.

If it felt that good for me, I can't imagine how good it felt on the other end.

It was addicting.

That's right folks, positive can be addictive.

#oneword in August

So the whole #oneword movement was sweeping across the social media universe in a big way at the beginning of the year. It seems like a great way to do a new year's resolution. It is simple and easy to remember and focus on. I chose commit. I wrote these four things to commit to 6 months ago, underneath is my update.

1. Commit to my family. Spend quality time and commit to them.

I am proud of this. I threw hundreds, possibly thousands of pitches to my sons in the front yard. They may not make it to the pros, but they will remember me not saying no to them when they asked.

2. Commit to understanding. Ask why. It's not always what you think.

I'm still working on this one. The end of the year was tough, so I have worked hard this summer to seek understanding.

3. Commit to literacy in my classroom. No more stand and deliver. My students will spend time reading and engaging with text. Everday.

This one was huge. I can't wait to get back into my classroom and making time for reading. The less I stand and talk the more time students get to read.

4. Commit to blogging. I will blog more, I even started a new one. It's not ready yet, but it's getting there.

This one is mostly a failure. I still have a few more months, but I have neglected it. I'll get back into it.

If you had a #oneword for this year, what was it and how have you done so far?

I'm a teacher, I can't lead

Have you ever heard this? Maybe not in so many words, but I'm sure the sentiment carries over into other statements as well. I don't think it's laziness, I think there are many reasons and motivations for teachers to pass the buck onto someone that has a leadership "title." 

The fact is that teachers can and should be leaders. I actually could argue that teachers have more impact on initiatives than the leaders that enact them. Here are a few things to think about with teacher leadership.

1. Build Relationships - The best leaders that I have worked with are masters of this. I am still working on this myself, but teachers have the best opportunity to do this. Besides students, who spends more time with teachers than teachers? Make the best of the time with other teachers to build a relationship that can lead to positive change.

2. Conversations - Teachers can lead through one-on-one conversations with other teachers. You don't have to give lengthy speeches at staff meetings to be a leader. Sometimes the most powerful acts of change can start with a small conversation.

3. Stay Positive - I know it's hard. I didn't say you can't ever vent. That's different. Venting every day is not venting, it's just being a Debby Downer. Even in the face of negativity, the best leaders spread positivity. The change that leaders enact should focus on the positive, not the negative.

Teachers can be leaders. We have the opportunity to be leaders and we need to make the most of those oppotunities. 

#oneword Commit

If you haven't heard about this #oneword movement, now you have. It's simple, pick just one word to focus on for the year. One word is simple and allows you to focus on that for the year.

I had to think for a while on mine. One word just kept popping up. Commit.

I want to commit to a few things this year.

1. Commit to my family. Spend quality time and commit to them.

2. Commit to understanding. Ask why. It's not always what you think.

3. Commit to literacy in my classroom. No more stand and deliver. My students will spend time reading and engaging with text. Everday.

4. Commit to blogging. I will blog more, I even started a new one. It's not ready yet, but it's getting there.

It's public now, so now I am committed.

On the Teacher's Lounge and John Kasich

If you haven't heard Ohio Governor John Kasich had to say about teacher's lounges, you can read and hear it here. What if John Kasich has a point about Teacher's lounges? I'm not saying that they should be banned, but I see a lot of comments in social media by teachers saying that they don't eat lunch in the teacher's lounge. Why?

The unfortunate answer is that the teacher's lounge can be an intimidating place. During my student teaching, my professor instructed us not to eat in the teacher's lounge. She didn't tell us why at first, but she later revealed that it can get negative at times. She was protecting us from the negativity during a stressful time when we needed to stay positive.

I know we don't want to hear this, but teachers do complain in the lounge, a lot. I am not trying to shame anyone here. I have most certainly contributed to this negativity at times. And this is not to say that all lounges are like this, I have experienced good ones and bad ones in my time. And even the best lounges can turn nasty with a few comments. But the truth is that it can get bad, bad enough that some teachers refuse to go in there.

I do not find myself agreeing with John Kasich very often. I really don't agree with him here either, I just think he has a point, a point that he argued in a very inarticulate way.

So what do we do?

Turn the lounge into a positive place. Show John Kasich that the teacher's lounge can be a positive uplifting place where teachers can talk with other adults. Show him that the teacher's lounge is a place where teachers can laugh and support each other. Show him and everyone else that teachers need to spend time together and be social just like other human beings.

My professor has retired, but wouldn't it be cool if we could turn the teacher's lounges around and she could lift her ban on student teachers in the lounge? Yep. That would be pretty cool.

Hello Cleveland

I consider myself a connected educator. I consider myself a progressive educator. Confession time; I have never been to an edcamp. 

There have been plenty of excuses, but I won't go into them here. The fact is that I was neither of the two until I attended an edcamp Cleveland.

I am an unabashed advocate of social media. I also believe that our electronic connections lead to stronger face-to-face connections. In Cleveland, that belief was only strengthened. Twitter avatars became faces and 140 characters became conversations with no limits.

When I walked in that first room, I didn't know what to expect. We sat down and the conversation started. There was no Sage on the Stage or projectors, just teachers talking. Real talk about real problems. I came away with more questions than answers, and I like that.

I was able to share the day with a colleague, from my school. We started talking about hosting an edcamp for our district or building. The goal of anyone that attends an Edcamp should be to share. Share your questions, share your answers and share your love of education. #iWill share and I will be back.

Hello Cleveland. Hello edcamp. See you again soon.

The Power of a Comment

No, I'm not trying to solicit comments on my posts here, I'm talking about written comments on student work. You know, the kinds of things teachers used to do in the old days. I am a huge believer in digital writing and I love the comment feature in Goggle docs, I decided to kick it old school for my last writing project.

For my student's recent argumentative writing project, I broke it up into parts. This way the students turned parts of it into me and I was able to give incremental feedback. I have been caught in the trap of having students working on a project for a few days, and then spending days myself reading through them all. The result was a grade and few words from me, like "good job."

When I handed the first part back to the students recently, I wasn't really looking for their reactions, but I overheard one student read his to the kids around him. He was smiling and was very proud. The smile on his face reminded me why I need to comment on student work more often. Sure, I could have waited until the essay was turned in and left one long comment about the whole thing, but now this kid is motivated to write. All because of one genuine and authentic comment.

If you aren't commenting on your student's work, you are doing them a disservice, and you are missing out on some rewarding experiences as a teacher. Eventually, their work will be shared with others and they will get even more comments and hopefully more smiles.

Chromebook Institute Presentation

Will Google Docs Kill the Paper/Pencil Star?

What did you learn?

4-H interview judging, it can mean many things to different kids and adults. Lots of hard work and sometimes last-minute changes with an occasional family disagreement thrown in for good measure. For those of you reading this that are not familiar, interview judging is when adults volunteer their time to judge a 4-H exhibitor's book work portion of their project and of course assign them a score. I have volunteered my time for over 10 years. I love interacting with the kids and learning more about and from them.

This year was different for me though. After a conversation with a friend about a different topic, I realized that we are doing some things wrong. One thing he said was that he was never very competitive because "My approach was to learn something. What could I take away from today that I can use in the real world?" Yeah. How can this help me in the real world? What a concept.

Parents, students and teachers have become so obsessed with the with scores that we have forgotten about the learning. A letter grade, a ribbon, an award shouldn't matter. The learning should matter.

At the end of judging, a grading period or the fair, instead of asking our kids, "What did you get?", we should ask, "What did you learn?"

Treat Your Students Like LeBron James

No I don't think that you should stop all media coverage of everything else for two weeks to give your students a lot of attention. That would be cool, but I am talking about the way the fans of Northeast Ohio have treated him. We should treat our students the same way.

We have all heard about the jersey burning and how upset fans were four years ago. Who would have thought that those same fans would be so forgiving? Do we forgive our students like that? I hope so.

Now my analogy has to stop at the rooting against James part. I admit that even I rooted against him at times. I am not suggesting that educators would ever do that.

What I am talking about is second chances. We need to make sure that our students are given second chances to perform academically and second chances in regards to behavior. We shouldn't judge our students by their behavior or one score on an assignment.

In LeBron's statement, he showed a lot of maturity. We forget that we watch our students mature every day. We should be patient to let that maturity develop. James' maturity may also have been helped by the fact that time heals all wounds.

Let's be honest, a lot of the forgiveness comes out of the fact that we think he will bring a championship to Ohio. James has already shown that he can succeed at the highest level. As educators, we need to give our students second, third, fourth, fifth or however many chances they need to succeed. Who knows, they may lead us to championships as well.

photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/keithallison/3404618770/">Keith Allison</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

So, I got my student's OAA scores

So I got my student's OAA scores in an email yesterday. At first, I was really happy. I was excited. The numbers were pretty high, higher than last year.

But, as I combed over the numbers, I started to feel different. I felt disappointed. Because the numbers weren't 100%, some kids didn't pass. So, did I fail them?

Then another feeling came over me. Disgust. I started looking at the student's names and matching them with numbers.

I get the need for measurement and accountability. I do. But, I felt like I was reducing my kids to a number. A number that may not correlate with actual learning that took place.

In this constant search for data and measurement are we turning humans into numbers?

I don't know the answer to this. I don't want to just add to the pile of comments and blogs and articles and tweets about how standardized tests are destructive. I just want to share with you how I feel about this whole thing.

Schoology vs. Google Drive #smackdown

I love Google. I love Google Drive. I love the fact everything is free. I love the collaboration. I love having students use Drive.

We are a GAFE school so our kids do use it, but we also have the LMS Schoology. It took some time for me to warn up to it, but I have realized is awesomeness as well.

I'll do this smack down style.

What I Love: Drive is awesome for collaboration. I have students share with me when they start a document or presentation. I can chat, comment or edit while they are writing, not after. Feedback is awesome. It's like we are creating the essay/project together.
Schoology allows me to keep everything in one place. It's very organized. I love that I can create rubrics and the students see them right away. I love that I can align the rubrics to CCSS.

What I Don't Love: Drive is really hard to keep organized. I have to use the search feature all the time. I make folders, but things get lost in the folders. OK not lost, misplaced. Grading is a pain. Rubrics have to be shared and it's hard to include them in the assignment.
Schoology is an LMS. So that means that student's work is not accessible to them after the course is over. Schoology has had some blips with syncing with Drive. It hasn't always worked the best. There are so many options with assignments that it gets confusing sometimes. Visible, published, available, ungraded, sometimes I'm not sure what to do with all of the options

Solution: Use both. Schoology allows students and teachers to connect their Drive account to Schoology. Students can create something in Drive and upload it to Schoology. Best of both worlds!

I'm sorry #ohedchat

I want to be honest with my #ohedchat community. I have failed you recently. We started this crazy thing a little over a year ago. I'm an amazed with the progress we have made. But I have made some mistakes.

Mistake 1. Selfishness - in my ambition to make this thing happen, I have selfishly thought that I could do it all. Make the surveys, moderate the chats, make schedules, and I couldn't.

Mistake 2. I refused help - somewhere along the line, multiple people probably offered to help me along the way and for some reason I said "Nope, I got it." I'm not sure why but again I thought I could do it all.

Mistake 3. I procrastinated - I waited to post the topic until late or asked a moderator to cover at the last minute.

Bottom line is that I don't want the chat to suffer because of my mistakes. We need to keep this going and continue the positive conversation. This started out as a grassroots movement and it needs to stay that way.

If you are interested in setting up a moderator rotation or helping out any other way, please let me know. Also let me know if you have any other suggestions to keep this thing going. I didn't start this community, and I don't want my mistakes to end it. Thanks.

Music and Orpheus

Here are my 7th graders comparing modern music to the Greek myth of Orpheus. #learningandfun

Superheroes

Here is a short video of my Sixth Graders using Superhero artifacts to compare and contrast to Gilgamesh. Just another example of #learningandfun.

Learning #AND Fun

I have always had students tell me that they enjoy my class. I even have parents tell me how much their kids enjoy class. I know my students learn as well. I always try to tell jokes and frequently make fun of myself. Most of the time my jokes are so lame that they laugh at how lame they are rather than the punchline. But are my students having fun?

I started thinking about this while I attended OETC and OETCx. While listening to a good friend's FREd talk (Forging Real Education) I really thought about my approach. My kids laugh and say they have fun, but are they learning while they are having fun, and vice versa?

Armed with this new question, I decided to plan something that was both; learning AND fun.

My 6th graders are currently reading The Cay by Theodore Taylor. The main character loses his vision and must trust a complete stranger while they are both stranded on an island. I had started a discussion with then about what it would be like to be blind. Then I realized that they could actually experience blindness.

A couple QR codes and a few blindfolds later, they were laughing and bumping into each other. They were using technology, discussing the book, learning what it is like to be blind, AND having fun.

I'm not writing this to tell you how great this activity was or that I am an awesome teacher that plans great lessons like this all the time. I am writing this to show you that no matter how you feel about your teaching, you can always get better. To quote Ryan McLane, "I'm not trying to change the world. I'm just trying to get kids to hate school less."

It's a great message that we all can learn from. Now, how are we going to learn AND have fun next week?

I'm going to OETC, be jealous

I finally got the confirmation that my district will be sending me to the Ohio Educational Technology Conference. I have wanted to go for a while now because of all the great things that I have heard about it. Not only did my district agree to send me, but they are sending me for two days!

I am really looking forward to the conference for the opportunity to learn new ways to integrate technology in my classroom. I am also looking forward to the tweetup and meetup opportunities. I have interacted online with quite a few people in the state and I am looking forward to the opportunity to meet them face to face.Plus they have an app.

 I am also looking forward to OETCx. An alternative conference might be just what the doctor ordered on the second day of the conference.

Also, I will be allowed to tweet on a Monday and Tuesday during the day, I don't really get the chance to do that any other time. I know, I'm a nerd.

So be jealous people, I'm going to OETC.

A Christmas Carol - 7th Grade

I'm a little late with this post, but I need some help. We recently read this classic novel as a part of our seventh grade curriculum. As a building we are looking at reviewing and revising our book list for grades 6, 7 and 8. I am stuck. I like this novel, but I'm not sure if we should keep it. It seems that I have as many questions as answers for this task. I have some pros and cons for reading the book as a class at the 7th grade level.

Pros:

• The book is full of figurative language that can be dissected and analyzed
• There are many play and movie versions that offer many opportunities to compare and contrast different writing styles and viewpoints
• There are many themes, but they really don't dwell on one singular theme of Christmas

Cons:

• The 1800's. The language is so different and is really tough for the students to get through at times
• The chapter length makes it hard to divide it into equal parts
• Dickens. I love the guy, but students, not so much. The lexile is about right for middle school, but it seems like it is challenging at times for students.
• Timing. Do we have enough time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to read it all and teach it effectively?

So that is where I am with this novel. I can't decide what to do here. So, I'm crowd sourcing this thing. Let me know what you think. I you read it or have read it at the middle school level let me know. Thanks.

Pre-Service Teachers and #ohedchat

I am so excited about what just happened that I have to blog about it. We held #ohedchat and the topic was New Teacher Preparation. This is a topic that I have suggested many times, but the votes just weren't there for it. Tonight it happened and it was everything I expected and more.

First of all, new and Pre-Service Teachers got involved in the chat. This was so important for them. Some of them lamented about not feeling like they were a part of their cooperating school and district. Hopefully, they felt welcome during the chat. We also had a lot of participation from my Alma mater, Kent State. One of my favorite teacher/professor was even in on the chat. Dr. Kist

I kind of wish that I had my PLN to fall back on during my Pre-Service teaching days. I had a great experience don't get me wrong, but it is nice to have other people to fall back on as well. There are people in my PLN that are go-to people for certain things. I could have used that a few times back then.

I hope that the Pre-Service teachers take the time to make their PLN count. This is a great resource and should not be ignored.

I said that this was my favorite chat so far and I mean it. This has helped revive my passion for the chat. For whatever reason, I have had a hard time getting into the chat lately. I needed this. Thank you. Thanks to all that participated, I needed this.